Earlier this year, TCL released a trailer for next stop paris – An AI-animated short film that feels like a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters who don't move their mouths when talking, lifeless expressions, and weird animation that makes it seem as if the scene is constantly vibrating.
I thought this might be the extent of TCL's experimentation with AI movies, given the healthy dose of criticism it received online. But boy, was I wrong. TCL debuts five new AI-generated short films, also destined for its TCLTV Plus free streaming platform, and next stop paris Defeat, I just Was To see what else it has cooked up.
Although the new movies look a little better next stop parisThey serve as another reminder that AI-generated videos don't exist yet, something we've seen many of video generation equipment risingLike OpenAI's SoraBut in TCL's case, it's not just the AI ​​that makes these movies bad.
Here are five of them, ranked from tolerable (5) to “I wish I could ignore it” (1).
5. Sun Day
The concept of this futuristic short film is basically the same short story by ray bradbury “All summer in one day.” It is the story of a young girl who lives on a planet where the sun only rises every seven years, but only 10 people can see it at a time from the top of a building called the “Citadel”. Well, this girl wins the lottery to see the sun from the rooftop, but two bad guys lock her in a room to prevent her from going up to the fort.
When she tries to escape the sewers beneath the school the AI-generated sequences become quite difficult to follow. She somehow comes into contact (telepathically?) with her father, a maintenance worker who knows his way around the underground. There, she encounters purple rats on her way to an elevator (?) that turns into a rocket and flies her to a rooftop (?) where she can finally see the sun.
The voice acting in this isn't bad, but the lack of facial expressions was pretty ridiculous (just watch). this scene,
4. Project Nexus
project nexus It's more like a five-minute trailer than a short film, and unlike TCL's other AI movies, it's meant to depict animated characters, not attempt to make them look as human as possible. It starts like this: A man discovers what looks like a radioactive rock and then coordinates the arrest of a group of four teenagers who gain some kind of supernatural powers after the rock explodes beneath the prison.
They use these new powers to escape from prison, and that's where it ends with “To Be Continued”. I thought maybe facial expressions would be better since the characters aren't meant to look completely human, but he definitely was not case hereThis film's story is probably the most compelling of the bunch – the AI-generated animation and questionable voice acting make it hard to watch.
3. Best day of my life
This is a docufiction-style short film in which the actor playing Dr. Warren Brown uses AI to retell the harrowing story of how he lost his leg after being caught in an avalanche atop Chile's Cerro Castillo mountain – and it's hard to tell which part of the story (if any) actually happened.
Although much of the film is AI flashbacks, showing clips of Brown and his friend crossing a snowy mountain peak, it cuts between scenes of the actual, human actor who plays Brown and narrating the story. . It's basically like watching an Investigation Discovery show, but with all the “dramatic entertainment” created with AI.
The story starts to lose me when it shows an AI-generated image of a severed leg, followed by a sad scene of Brown's “life flashing before her eyes”, in which, for some reason, a Includes the transformation of a zebra into a lion. I was clearly disappointed at the end when Brown called it “the best day” of his life.
2. Audition
First of all, audition Didn't feel that bad. But what I thought was a silly skit about an actor auditioning for a role in front of a finicky casting director turned into some strange and wacky attempts at comedy. After asking the actor to try different accents, the casting director's requests become more specific – he needs to be young, maybe look like Brad Pitt (with elf ears, for some reason,
Magically, with the power of AI, the actor transforms into everything the casting director wants him to be and even deepfakes him into different scenes from iconic movies. Indiana Jones And atGuess what? Ultimately, the casting director turned her away because she wanted something “different”. When he passes out, his clones practice their lines in the waiting room.
1. Slug
It's OK, I In fact Hate it. It's like Franz Kafka had access to AI and created this metamorphosisThe gist of it is this: A woman is suffering from a severe case of arthritis, and she tries to contact family members and her doctor by phone, but they don't pick up the phone. She doesn't seem to be able to leave the house because of her pain, which is why she looks so longingly out the window when she spots a slug outside.
After this things get really strange. His hands and feet become covered in mud, until his body slowly turns completely into a slug. Viewer discretion is advised, as it is really disturbing. Once the metamorphosis is complete, she exits the house in slug form, and someone eventually answers her call. How sad.